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New Ad City

Breaking down the cost of
getting our attention.

Somehow, in the last five years or so, the entire city of New York has become sponsored, product-placed, and wrapped in logos. In a way, it brings back the wild signage of the nineteenth-century metropolis, which might not be an accident, since the effectiveness of the more subtle electronic promotional strategies of the twentieth century are waning. “Advertising agencies are moving more towards outdoor promotions to make up for what’s been lost in the age of TiVo,” says Stephen Freitas of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, Inc. But it’s also just a sign that we’re a boomtown again, with scaffolding everywhere, begging to be plastered (those wheat-pasted posters require city permits and permission of the building owner, but that rule is too often skirted.) “You could be walking down any block and probably see eight to twelve ads. In Times Square, it becomes dozens and dozens,” says Irwin Sheftel of billboard company Van Wagner. “I wouldn’t begin to know how to quantify the density of ads in this city.”